America’s economic growth slows to 0.7%

THE news that America’s GDP growth slowed to 0.7% on an annualised basis in the first quarter of 2017 is no real surprise, for two reasons. First, although consumer and small business confidence have soared since Donald Trump won the presidential election, most measures of actual economic activity have failed to display the same vim (see article). Second, it is often the case that growth sags in the first quarter of the year, despite recent efforts by statisticians to purge the economic data of seasonality. Since 2010, excluding today’s release, first-quarter GDP growth has averaged just 1.1%, compared with 2.5% at other times in the year. Judged against that benchmark, the latest data are only a little disappointing.

THE news that America’s GDP growth slowed to 0.7% on an annualised basis in the first quarter of 2017 is no real surprise, for two reasons. First, although consumer and small business confidence have soared since Donald Trump won the presidential election, most measures of actual economic activity have failed to display the same vim (see article). Second, it is often the case that growth sags in the first quarter of the year, despite recent efforts by statisticians to purge the economic data of seasonality. Since 2010, excluding today’s release, first-quarter GDP growth has averaged just 1.1%, compared with 2.5% at other times in the year. Judged against that benchmark, the latest data are only a little disappointing.